Why it's so hard for Aston Martin, McLaren and Lotus to make money #289

The Intercooler

Dan Prosser and Andrew Frankel

Cars, The Intercooler, Car, Motorsport, Supercar, Leisure, Automotive, Intercooler, Driving

4.8 • 868 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dan Prosser and Andrew Frankel examine why British sports car makers have such a difficult time returning good profits, or even just staying afloat. They're joined in the studio by Simon Lane, who has held senior board-level positions at Aston Martin and Lotus. What do Britain's most famous automotive brands get right, and why do they do often flirt with bankruptcy?

In this episode, Dan and Andrew also quiz Simon on the flourishing restomod scene, which has numerous advantages many bigger car manufacturers would love to have.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Intercooler podcast, everybody, the podcast powered by car finance specialist JBR Capital.
0:10.6	This is episode 289 with me Dan Prosser and him, Andrew Frankel.
0:16.4	Andrew, what you wanted to dedicate an entire episode to the British sports car industry.
0:21.4	Yeah.
0:21.8	And also the sort of the emerging resto modding industry that's really thriving in this country
0:27.3	at the moment.
0:28.1	We wanted to do this with some authority.
0:30.6	Are you saying that is something that we lack?
0:32.6	No.
0:33.6	But our guest today, Simon Lane, knows a great deal about this world, a great deal more about this world than we do.
0:42.0	Well, he's actually getting his hands involved.
0:44.5	And he's been part of this scene for, well, decades, I suppose, Simon.
0:48.2	Now, do you, you've worked at a very, very senior level for two of the most famous British sports car manufacturers. Can you tell us which ones they are? Or would you rather not say? No, I don't think I can keep that a secret. So most recently, Lotus, so I was an executive director at Lotus, responsible for a department called Lotus Advanced Performance, which I guess you could think
1:12.7	of as the equivalent of MSO at McClara.
1:15.1	Yeah.
1:15.9	Similar.
1:16.8	And then prior to that, I was the director of Q and special vehicle programs at Aston Martin.
1:22.9	Yeah.
1:23.0	So in total 30 years in the industry, actually most of it on the retail side latterly with
1:30.7	Porsche retail group and Jardine Motors group so I ran Aston Martin Cambridge and
1:36.9	latterly Porsche Centre Cambridge as dealer principal and then Aston Martin offered me a role
1:42.0	in the factory so I made the unusual I suppose, from retail into OEM at quite senior level.
	...

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